The present invention relates to an ultrasonic measurement apparatus having the function of, with the use of an ultrasonic image, such as a B mode image (tissue cross-section image), M mode image and doppler mode image, measuring a point-to-point distance for instance, editing a result of measurement and of calculation in report form and displaying and printing it out.
Various apparatuses are known which use an ultrasonic wave for medical application. Their major application is to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus for diagnosing a cross-sectional image of the soft tissue of a living body with the use of the apparatus using an echo of an ultrasonic pulse wave. This type of diagnostic apparatus uses a non-invasive checking method and displays the cross-sectional image of the tissue and has its own unique features advantageous over other diagnostic apparatuses, such as the X-ray diagnostic apparatus, X-ray CT apparatus, MRI apparatus and nuclear-medicine diagnostic apparatus, that is, the features of being capable of real-time display, being compact and inexpensive, being free of X-ray exposure and safer and capable of bloodstream imaging by an ultrasonic doppler method.
For these reasons, such apparatus finds an extensive effective application in the field of the heart, abdomen, mammary glands and urinary organs as well as in the obstetric/gynecologic field. In particular, the heart's beats, as well as the aspect of the fetus's movement, can be obtained on a real-time display by a simple operation of applying an ultrasonic probe to a body surface of a human subject. Further, the apparatus can repeatedly check them more safely and can readily be moved along the bedside in a simpler way.
In view of such various advantages, the apparatus has recently been used not only to measure the sizes of the fetus, lesion, organ, etc., on a tissue's cross-sectional image (B mode) based on the point-to-point distance, circumferential length, area, capacity, etc., as have been practiced in the fields above but also to calculate the inner diameter of the heart's mitral valve and aortic valve and their retracting rate as well as a pressure comparison difference using a doppler mode, left ventricle's diastolic (systolic) volume, stroke volume, cardiac output and ejection fraction. In this way, the number of items to be measured is increased, so that more and more utility is obtained from the apparatus.
Of such ever-increasing measuring items, optional items are selected by the operator and the results of measurements and calculations, together with the titles of the measuring items, can be edited in report form, displayed on a CRT and printed out.
As set out above, a vast number of measuring items have been involved and several tens of pages are required in report form. As a result, in order to search for a specific item or items of measurement results in a report, it is necessary to frequently thumb through pages or effect page scrolling.